Succor
by luckylisp
Summary: Set a few weeks before the events of the film. It's not entirely business as usual when Mink and Bernie hook up in the wake of a failed fix...(abusive relationship, dubcon, rape, violence, references to Antisemitism, a bit where I totally rip off The Sweet Smell of Success. Sort of hurt/comforty. Sort of.)


**A/N:** I wrote this in 2009, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Put it on Another Fanfiction Site and forgot about it. Then this week I was on a big film noir binge and I started thinking about Miller's Crossing and this fic. So I kicked it around a bit, tightened it up and brang it over here. Lemme know what you think!

The lovely Bitterfig (for whom I was beta-reading at the time) was the first person to see this thing, and she gave me some really good feedback and encouragement. Cheers!

**Succour**

Fourth day after the fight Mink woke in the Dane's bed alone and hungry, the kind of hungry he hadn't been since forever. What with one thing and another over the years the most he usually felt in that department was a jabbing need for fuel, and the terror of the last three days had pushed even that into the background.

This morning, though, he was thinking in terms of tastes, of all the different things he could have. He was ravenous. Going by Eddie's standard leftovers of a full ashtray and an empty mug, eating in wouldn't be an option, but everything beyond the front stoop looked like the mouth of Hell.

Things had gone like they'd gone before, to start with. Caspar had placed his bet against the favourite, Marty Knutsen, this blonde barn door of a kid, farm boy or acted like it. That was kind of the problem, he was wholesome, straight as a die, he didn't seem the type diving'd sit with, but everyone has their price and Caspar wouldn't've laid his money down on a liability, so Mink told Bernie and Bernie sold the information on.

Still it gnawed at him, noticeably, so much so even Bernie had paused once midsentence and turned Mink's face to his like a clock, like something or other at which a cursory glance was needed and said "What's eating you? Bearing in mind I got about fifteen minutes."

"Whaddayou care, if we got about fifteen minutes?" he'd replied, and Bernie'd chuckled disdainfully and shoved him bellyfirst into the edge of the desk.

Then, Saturday night, edge of the crowd, picking up last-minute bets, the chumps seemed all happy about laying them on the kid, which shouldn't have been out of the ordinary, he was wonder boy, the great white hope, that was the point, but there was a smug knowing manner to some of them which he should've spotted for what it was then and there. It should've struck a spark with that nagging worry, but it hadn't.

Knutsen. He'd _won_, his mousy-marcelled girl all cow-eyed in the front row as he proved to her and their unborn child that his integrity could not be bought. Gone the high road. Gone a damn sight further than that right after, somewhere between the ring and her loving arms, but Mink hadn't seen that done. He'd been looking to Bernie who was standing in the hollering crush over the other side of the ring, silent and sick pale, running speedy calculations behind his eyes on how many people he'd told about what had just not happened. How much they'd parked on it. How much they'd paid him for it. He took off then and hadn't been seen since.

So since that night Mink had been maddeningly uncertain of which kind of danger he was in, if Bernie'd been bumped he might've bequeathed him the next place in line, maybe dead men don't talk but dying ones don't like to shut up. And the thought of the man still alive somewhere, sore as hell and wanting an explanation, filled him with a different fear, not the heavy sickening one of waiting to get hit – which he hadn't felt in ages, not once since he met the Dane, but it's like riding a bike – him showing up bruised would raise some awkward questions, and Bernie wasn't that much bigger than him, and you don't sling your best years such as they were on a string of one-man wrecking crews without learning a trick or two, whether you want to or not. And after a while, violence stops surprising you. You go limp and wait. This was different, it was uncharted territory. He didn't know how much Bernie blamed him, he didn't know the limits of his anger. Or his invention.

Make matters worse for most of the past three days he'd been alone in a room with a man who could tell when there was something bothering him, who'd always invited his thoughts and calmed his nerves and who, despite there being a fair cut of pragmatism in with all the things that drew him to Eddie in the first place, he'd never been able to be really cold-blooded and clear-headed with. Course, up till lately he hadn't had to be.

He'd been standing in the middle of the floor on the balls of his feet, arching like a cat, his back against the Dane's chest. Stretching his neck to press it to the other man's mouth, pushing pulse against lips against teeth, insistently, Eddie never having been much of a one for biting, but maybe if he could get him to do it a couple times he wouldn't notice which mark he hadn't made. Couldn't hear him complaining. Not about that anyway.

"Hell of a thing," he said.

Mink "mm"ed flat as he could muster, reaching back to start peeling Eddie's coat off, doing it by feel alone, fingers gliding blind down those huge knotted shoulders but still he wasn't finished on Knutsen.

"You get me, right?" Always some question like that, always taking an interest. So Mink offered some brightly brainless reply about how suicidal it was and what was the kid thinking, throwing over that offer, the kind of money Caspar puts up to useful fighters-

"Not that." You could get a finger between Eddie's mouth and Mink's neck then. Two maybe. "When he didn't dive. It surprised the wrong people."

"What? Nah, Eddie, trust me" – Christ would that one ache in a couple hours – "I'da known if anything like that was going on-"

Then, in the long palpitating silence after he'd said it, it dawned that Eddie hadn't straight-out said he thought anything like that _was_ going on, but the man's next words gave him an opening like the gates of Heaven.

"Sure, but you were working, I got to spectate. Bomb like that drops, you see what everyone's thinking, like-"

"Ya mean like Jesus look at that mug, has a thing just" – executing a long, teasing stretch – "_thrown_ in his lap and he ain't taking advantage, tell ya some guys don't know what's good for `em-"

It worked. Eddie clamped a hand down on his thigh and yanked him up and inwards, onto balletic tiptoe. Mink exhaled a ragged laugh, relief and gratification for the beating back of fear and guilt, for now, for the steel strength thrumming in the body he was cleaved to, the arm pinning him like a butterfly. Eddie about took a chunk out of his neck, then nuzzled his way up to his ear and filled it full of some loving growl -

"Yeah, keep it up, bright boy…"

"I'm shaking…"

It was no good, he was too hungry. He went out, hair unslicked, coat collar up to his eyes, hat down to his collar, and found his way to a hash house he'd been to before, but always between dusk and dawn when it drew a different clientele. Right now it was quarter-full of strangers and the friendly smell of grease. Mink slid into a booth away from the window and felt himself start to unwind. For half an hour or so it was bliss, being in a room without sizing or being sized up, shovelling down ham and eggs and five-sugar black coffee like there's no tomorrow. Like.

Then, it didn't go quiet, or loud, no warning, no dramatics. He just looked up and there was Bernie standing over him.

He smiled mirthlessly at Mink's gawp and said "I walked into a door." _A revolving door_, Mink added silently, and aloud murmured "how'd you find me?", like they were some grand romance. Bernie directed the eye he was able to open at the spotty, stringy kid behind the counter, who was giving a piece of liver his very undivided attention.

"It's a gift I have," he said. "You gonna finish that?"

There was an unfriendly face on the desk at the Royale so Bernie went up the stairs and Mink went up the fire escape. He got there first and hated it, hated that he was waiting meekly above the alley on Bernie's displeasure. Goddamn Eddie too goddamn hardboiled to shell out for a goddamn loaf of bread. But then, he reasoned grimly, why delay the inevitable? But then why not? Seemed to have been working ok. Bernie opened the window and let him in. The room was a sty, more than usual. It read like a list, where they threw things around, where they threw Bernie around. He put an arm either side of Mink to shut the window.

Mink hesitated. Apologising might make it all right. It might look like an admission of guilt. He started to say something or other but Bernie spoke first. His voice came quiet and muffled from his bruised mouth but there was a brittle edge back of it.

"They had some guys in town, they usually do. I didn't get halfway down the street."

The Combine then. Mink didn't know much about them, the outta-town money, that being how Bernie liked it. Apart from that they could elevate friendly bookies out of the gutter if they chose, if those bookies stayed in good with them. If they didn't, unintentionally or otherwise, cost them thousands of dollars. Bernie's face was suddenly closer, his eye searching, the expression in it weirdly, scarily vulnerable, like a wounded thing about to attack.

"I told `em. Told `em I got a bum tip, I wasn't tryna-" _jew `em_ sat in the air unsaid. His fists were clenched on the window ledge, left white-knuckle tight, right curled loose. Mink glimpsed damage through those fingers, a fat pink flower in the palm, charred-edged.

Nothing coming from that side then, he felt the need to tell himself. It was still better than even money he wasn't about to get worked on but he was thinking like he used to, reacting like he used to, drawing himself in and making himself inoffensive, or trying; he could hear the whine rising in his own voice when he said "Bernie," and knew he was about to run out of useful things to say, but he pressed on – "I wasn't pulling anything I swear I didn't know I _swear_, mean what'm I psychic, come on-"

"Yeah," Bernie cut in emphatically but it sounded like no. No excuses, no wriggling out of it. "I said something like that, like how the hell was I supposed to know he wasn't gonna tank? They didn't buy it, they said I was insulting 'em, said what're you a convent girl now schmatte, that's careless."

Mink pressed his shoulder blades to the glass.

"So they took their dough back. What was left. `Course they're still out everything they woulda won, but-" Bernie turned to look at his wrecked room and raised a whatcha-gonna-do hand, then his breath came out hard as sob, laugh, sigh of relief "-they said no hard feelings."

Mink was a little surprised at this. Thinking that's as benevolent as they get, as anyone ever gets. Or maybe just the smart play, leaving Bernie able to sell them the next fix, and the next, long as he doesn't screw up again. Bernie whirled back suddenly with that hand still up and now almost a clenched fist, but he looked lost, not angry or righteous. Mink raised a defensive arm, they collided and grappled and whatever it started as, it ended in a clumsy, shuddering embrace. They stumbled around the fallen desk going at each other's belts.

Everything was different.

Before this, they'd had to be quick, now they had to take their time. Bernie splayed on his back on the bed, Mink straddling him, peeling him out of his shirt, making him yelp when it brushed that cigarette stigmata, making him grit out some impatient imploring whine while he spitslicked his own palm, making him gasp and clutch convulsively at his hip when at last he lifted himself and slid forwards on his knees, thrusting against Bernie, taking him in sharp and deep.

Bernie hardly spoke, the sweet-sour litany that usually flowed out of his mouth reduced to the odd word, then not even words as Mink rocked, slow as he could stand it, his eyes drawn unavoidably down the black-and-blue continents on the other man's body. It occurred to him, position he was in, he could take a little payback of his own – for all the sly brutality and casual contempt, for knowing that even if Bernie didn't have him sewn over what they're doing to Caspar and each other he'd probably still be running back for more – but God help him, he really didn't want to.

So he waited till neither of them could wait any more before starting to move harder and faster, placed his hands everywhere unbruised, traced the coppery split of those lips under the kind of soft fluttering kisses that any other day would've made Bernie sneery and him sick. It was like they were two different people. Why he wasn't sure, and not about to find out as his thighs tautened and his mind flooded with need. He was sick of thinking anyway, second-guessing and chiselling every waking hour. He couldn't untangle what he wanted.

But he remembered, weeks back, after some long, lucrative rounds of cards and craps with Verna, rolling back to hers in the early hours of the afternoon. He was half-dozing on her couch when the front door opened, awake enough to see her take two cigarettes into her mouth in greeting and hear Bernie say to her _Christ, I feel like you look_, some crack anyone could've come out with, but thinking of it now, here, it sounded like a gospel truth. Comforting was what it was, seeing his own battered and shaky image, past future and present in the man under him and relieving it, giving it pleasure and peace.

Me and him, against the ropes, he thought swoonily, maybe it took all this happening to see it, but in a final analysis, in the bones of us, we're more alike than we could've ever stood to admit...He bucked finally two three times, then folded slowly over, covering the other man's body with his own.

"It'll be alright," he whispered into Bernie's neck.

Bernie looked at the ceiling and said "I know."

Afterwards was different too. There was none of the usual bitter silence, the sniping at each other. They shared a bottle of gin out of the desk drawer that had somehow escaped the fury and Mink's last cigarette. By the time dusk fell he was stinko and if not happy, it'd do till happy showed up. He wasn't holding his breath.

"Whatcha doing tomorrow night, 'bout 8?" Bernie asked, opening the window like a gentleman.

"Lemme guess," Mink husked. Bernie walked warm fingers up his spine. Thinking about it this was the only time Mink could remember a touch of Bernie's not being all business, function or threat or his own gratification. It was nice.

"Attaboy."

So the following night Mink was back at the Royale, going through the door this time. The old front-desk bastard – sour but safe – cracked a knowing sneer which he wasn't going to lose any sleep over, 302 was likely the League of Decency compared to what went on elsewhere in the dump. And there were other things on his mind.

He took the stairs fast, aching with the anticipation he knew he'd hate himself for later but hell, sheep as a lamb, did their knock and the door was tugged open real quick, eagerly. He took two steps in and stopped dead. The room was tidier. The bed was made. Behind him Bernie heeled the door shut. "What's the rumpus," he said, such warmth in the rum dark of his unblackened eye, smiling so wide it was a wonder his lip didn't re-split.

The other man, the one sitting on the only chair, just nodded, acknowledgement and appraisal at once. As far as the latter was concerned Mink reciprocated instinctively. Brick shithouse running to flab in a nice suit. One of the Combine maybe, or one of their apes. His knuckles were swollen and shiny but that could've been a coincidence. There were introductions of some sort but Mink didn't hear them. He was recalling everything he'd thought yesterday afternoon with cruel clarity - _me and him? In the bones of us? Yeah, oh_ sure -

"What the hell is this?" he stammered, though the answer to that was up in lights long before Bernie started his slow dance around it, about how he was out a lot of scratch not to mention a lot of faith where a lot of people are concerned, and this'd be a step towards fixing things…

Bernie manoeuvred him into the bathroom before he got the chance to dive at the door. He caught a glimpse of an apologetic grin thrown at the visitor and right then was throttled and gutted by complete understanding – of course he understood, it was about as complicated as a kidney punch – but there wouldn't be violence he could tell, not that kind at least. Bernie didn't have to lay a finger on him. Smart. And probably not even the limits of his invention.

Mink sagged against the mouldy wall. He tried to gather his thoughts and words but all that came out were the questions he already had answers to, querulous _what_s and _why_s-

"Did I stutter? I need money."

"But, but Christ -" I don't I'm not I can't. He was pretty sure he could gauge what the man's reaction would be to any of these, he knew him that well. If not as well as he thought he did. He finished lamely "he's a total stranger…"

"So chat."

"Bernie-"

"Things to do, Mink." He already had his coat on. He picked up a hairclip from the sink – always the odd thing of Verna's here – straightened and pocketed it.

"Please," Mink said, then stopped. He wouldn't beg, not because he was above it but because he knew it was useless. Like he knew he wasn't Bernie's sole option for whatever slim roll of ready money this'd bring in, like Bernie knew the Combine wouldn't have starved for want of Saturday's take. That was never the point. It was the screw-up side of things they didn't like and couldn't afford. So they gave you one warning shot. No hard feelings.

"You're a son of a bitch," he managed.

"For what, outraging ya virtue?" Bernie laughed, he'd got his laugh back. "Ohh sugar, you slay me…"

So Mink went back in the room. Thinking Bernie's got a point, about the virtue. Besides which it's not that different from getting beaten up. You just wait.


End file.
